Gnats
by pronker
Summary: Obi-Wan has a hospital stay. He ought to be used to them by now.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Gnats

Author: pronker

Characters: Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, others

Era: The Clone Wars, after Anakin receives Ahsoka as his Padawan and also after an incident in which Obi-Wan once again receives not-a-quite-deadly injury.

Summary: Obi-Wan has a hospital stay. He ought to be used to them by now.

A/N: So I was musing over my addiction to angst, and set this tale in the Halls of Healing, place of many woes, endless vigils over the comatose, and the most satisfying angst due the health-challenged. Can this story be considered anti-angst? I hope so. It's a timely writing challenge.

IOIOIOIOIO

Dear Diary, you are brand new, shiny and really a thoughtful gi-

"Shut that window, Anakin, gnats are getting in!"

Anakin flicked a finger, the window slid shut, and then, Diary, I saw him school his face to a listening glaze, similar to the one he wore when I lectured him long ago. There was a _hmmmmm_ and a gnat flitted by my ear, batting its silly head against the window. I stared pointedly at Anakin, but he examined the end of a fingernail as he settled in on the plastoid chair and did nothing. I continued.

"Sometimes I wonder whose operation I had. Everybody shook hands with the surgeon after it was over, I was told. Tributes were paid to the efficient staff here in the Halls, but nobody has a word to say for me."

"Poor baby."

"I'll admit that the patient would be nowhere without a healer. On the other hand, where would healers be without patients?"

"Uh-huh. You gonna eat that muja?"

Diary, is he still growing? Is that even possible? "Help yourself."

These things needed saying. "First, they put long white stockings on your legs to make you resemble a hoojib and then they dress you in that ridiculously abbreviated smock with the opening down the back - "

"You _ssssss _looked _slurp_ kinda cute _smack smack_- "

" - I'll get you for that, Anakin - and the chartreuse knit cap was even worse - and then they splay you on a white counter under bright lights while everyone prods you to see if you're tender. I felt like a Shopping Day Special in the Meat Department."

Anakin sat up straight at this. "I was worried, Master."

Diary, how does his voice get all soft like that when other times he howls fit to wake the dead? Isn't he ever equanimical? "You needn't have been. Right after it happened, the ambulance slowed for every traffic light, and once we stopped while the driver went into a convenience store to buy almond-kwevvu crisp munchies."

Anakin licked his fingers and shrugged. "Yeah, you're right, I guess. The Padawan orderly was trying to put a red eight on a black ten when I got here before you did. Had to set her straight before she slid you onto the hover gurney." He rocked back and forth from the front legs to the back legs in his chair. "Your speeder got a smashed franistan supraorbital valve , crumpled left fender and broken thruster. It'll take the regular staff _days _to fix, but if they put _me _on it - "

"Spare me."

Diary, I wanted him to visit and now I can't wait for him to leave. Help me. And get that gnat away from my fruit basket.

IOIOIOIOIO

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Dear Diary, another day, another - oh here she comes. Forgive me if I play a little game with an old friend, will you?

_swish swish crackle_

She's making vague healer noises. Her starched uniform makes _sounds_ as she peers into my face to see if I'm awake. I play dead. Then she moves about the room, adjusting the shades, straightening invisible objects on the nightstand, taking the flowers out of the vase and _snip_, there go their waterlogged stems. She drops the scissors with a _clang!_ and I bolt upright.

"Bant!"

"Well, how do we feel this morning?" Dear, dear Bant. "Did we have a nice night's sleep? Are we all ready for our bath?"

"If we must."

This daily ritual is always performed with a great show of modesty, as though I have any secrets from Halls of Healing personnel by now. I clutch the proffered duracotton blanket's hem and she removes my sleep shift and then, miraculously, the rest of the bedclothes. The water tub sits on the mattress beside me. Just to keep up pretenses, each limb is withdrawn from the protective cover one by one. Washing takes not even a minute - I've timed it, Diary - and then each section of my anatomy is dried and discreetly replaced underneath, so that I don't all show at the same time.

"Gah! _Bant!_"

"Cold hands, warm hearts! Never mind about kicking over the tub, your linens needed changing anyway."

A deep mystery of the Force is how someone makes a bed while you are still in it, Diary. After she threads a fresh sleep shift onto my quivering naked form, I roll to one side, a great deal of pulling and hauling going on behind me. Then I roll onto the other side, crossing a ridge of bedding as high as Senate Hill. The same yanking and tugging begins all over again. By the time I roll into my back, the bed is all made, and here it is only seventh hour.

"Let me just look at your chart, Obi ... hmmmm. The fruit doesn't seem to be doing the trick."

Oh. Oh, _no._ My life is an open chart at the foot of my bed, the most intimate functions performed for all to see, every move I make eagerly recorded.

I negotiated. "Bant, you forget about this and as Councilmember I'll make sure you never draw creche duty again."

"I _like _creche duty."

I pleaded. "I'm already treated like an infant in these Halls, slats on either side of this bed like a crib to keep me from rolling out, pureed oatmeal in the morning, dinner at the ghastly hour of three in the afternoon. The only thing lacking is an abacus and set of plastoid blocks."

The lady wasn't budging. "I took an oath, Obi-Wan. Your health is my priority, _all_ parts of it."

Diary, there is no arguing with a determined Mon Cal. "Look! Behind you! There's a big bug!"

"Where? Where? Obi-Wan, it's just a gnat - oh no you don't, Master Jedi! You get those legs back in there, where do you think you're going? Act your age!"

"I'm acting like an infant if you're going to treat me like one - gah! Cold hands again!"

I am loaded into a hoverchair and propelled down the corridor at a dizzy rate of speed, weaving in and out between hobbling ambulatory sufferers and ducking around an occasional service wagon filled with tasteless, bland entrees. _No one _could find the food palatable, is it any wonder that I developed - _whoosh! _Doors slide open suddenly as I pass, or some other hoverchair comes hurtling around a corner, missing me by centimeters. It's just like being back on Nicandra Boulevard again. I crowd into a lift with three more hoverchairs, and Bant discusses me with her fellow healers in a detached professional way. I glare at the other patients with frank loathing. Misery does _not _love company.

Tell the Force, Dear Diary, that I am allowed _some_ allowance for hatred as I undergo this.

Bant smiles down at me. "Here we are, Obi-Wan. End of the line."

I expel a sigh.

IOIOIOIOIO

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Dear Diary, after yesterday's invasive ordeal, I am content to laze about. After all, don't I deserve it? I'll get bored, you say? Let that be a challenge.

Somehow it's afternoon. The cleaning droid's disinfectant odor has faded from this morning's spill on the tiles, the phlebotomist who, I suspect, has pointed teeth and hangs upside down in her quarters at night has come and gone, and now I find sport in cranking my bed into geometric patterns and Aurebesh characters. There, a push of this button to raise the head and then that one to raise the knees and I make this thing into a fairly decent Aurek. And there's the wastebasket, Diary, watch me wad these paper handkerchiefs and lob them across the room in this underhand shot! Life is full, don't you think so?

It's early evening and I'm running out of diversions, just like you said, Diary. I know, I'll ring for the healer on duty and make book on how long they take to arrive -

"Hello there! Needing a good read, are ye?"

It's the news vendor! Kind of her to stop in, her not even being Jedi. I think her function is outsourced, but fortunately my Councilmember duties do not include supervision of such things.

"Yes, well. Um. Well, yes. Thank you. What do you have?"

She has wrinkles on top of her wrinkles, but her hands are steady as the Temple's foundation. She rummages in her bag, punches up the latest editions of the holonews on one padd, flicks to the latest vids on MyTube on another, and opens a link to thousands of picture puzzles and word puzzles on the third. I arrange them on the coverlet in front of me, their strobing flashes drawing me in.

"Got L'levalc's latest?"

"Oh, ye do go for the loquacious sort of prose, don't ye? Here ye be."

Even the padd seems heavy as she pushes it onto my lap. Yes, L'levalc's tome is just what I need. He's gotten me through other stays in this evil place.

"I'll take all these, thank you very much." I don't even have to ask for what she is certain to add next.

Sure enough, she flops into the plastoid chair, allowing her bag of knowledge to drop heavily to the floor. "Number Sixteen 'ad another relapse last night, they got 'er under oxygen, it probably won't be long now." She scratches the side of her bulbous nose. "I see where the bed is empty in Twenty-Seven. I guess that means one less _Galaxapolitan_ for this floor."

I consider these developments glumly when a sprightly new voice makes an intrusion into my room. Diary, Senator Padme Amidala can be my companion in an accident any time.

"Come in, Lance, set up the tray over next to the bed. Pietro, light the candles." An influx of smartly uniformed folk swarm about my bed and I share a puzzled glance with Newsvendor. She smiles, winks one eye the color of a blackcurrant at me, and excuses herself. Senator Amidala bows her out the door, and I can only guess at the gossip that the garrulous old lady passes along. But never mind.

"Senator - "

"Padme, please. I think when two people's vehicles get as intimate as ours did on Nicandra Boulevard equates to a first name basis, Master Jedi."

"Obi-Wan."

"Yes. Obi-Wan."

"What's all this? I smell terratta strips!" The two smiling young men retire to a far corner of the room, tuning up instruments before playing a soft accompaniment to the elegant meal.

"With glockaw sauce, your favorite, Anakin told me." She arranges herself on the hard seat. "Please, enjoy yourself. Everything's been checked out with the staff and you're safe to eat it. I wouldn't want to trigger any allergies. Anakin told me you have those, too."

The terratta strip is delicious. "Anakin talks too much."

"Sometimes." She is adept as I am at turning conversations into innocuous corners. "I'm so sorry about the accident - "

"No need to apologize, Padme. I am a law-abiding being, and when your vehicle tried to occupy the space my vehicle already occupied, I obeyed the law of gravity and kept right on going."

Her laugh is welcome, oh so welcome, in this place. But where are my manners? "Have some?" Diary, terratta strips are _made _to be eaten with fingers, so why am I feeling gauche dangling one before her parted pink lips?

"Mmmmmm. Tasty. No, just one, I've already eaten." Along with the string duet, she fills the room with Senatorial goings on, the latest trends in women's styles, the way that the fireworks display on Naboo for its Festival of Light emblazons the heavens, and by the end of the meal, I feel better than in _days._

Dear Diary, my advice to anybody planning an accident is to have it with Amidala.

IOIOIOIOIO

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Dear Diary, I want to kill something. In particular, two gnats that seem to have taken up residence with me. I can see Master Qui-Gon in my mind's eye, folding his arms inside his sleeves: "Padawan, they are emblems of the Living Force and we must observe them before we can judge, whether we ever judge at all." Master, I just want them _out _- someone's coming.

Make that several someones.

Brash Youth is approaching, fairly bursting with good health. It laughs boisterously at its approach, the Force bulging into my room from the corridor, overpowering overtures to beat the band: Ahsoka Tano and her friend Barriss Offee.

Ahsoka and Barriss must have been under more alien suns than I recall, because Diary, when Ahsoka sheds her winter cloak in the warm confines of my invalid's room, her skin's umber tones seem richer and fuller, throbbing as much as Barriss's bewitching blend of feldgrau and emerald. I almost blink at the metaphorical brightness in the Force of these two. "Padawans," I manage.

"You sure seem to be taking it easy, Master Obi-Wan. I wish that I had nothing to do but loaf in bed all day." Ahsoka tosses her cloak onto my nightstand, knocking over the vase of flameflowers. "Ooops!"

"Ahsoka!" Barriss acts swiftly, gathering from the foot of my bed the robe that I plan on using today for a first attempt at shuffling around. She blots the water on the floor with my robe, not Ahsoka's, oh well. Ahsoka and Barriss whisk dizzingly about, replacing the water for the poor flowers and putting the vase back in its spot.

"There, all fixed," Ahsoka chirps. The two girls make themselves right at home with my fruit basket, selecting one pallie apiece, biting into them with loud crunches.

"Do you mind if I fine tune my assignment?" Barriss asks, dabbing her lips as she finishes her snack. "Madame Nu said I could turn it in late." She begins tapping on her text padd, frowning, muttering to herself as she studies. I notice her eyeing my fruit basket again and smile nostalgically at adolescent appetites.

"Certainly not, Barriss, go ahead - "

"How are you feeling, Master Obi-Wan? I don't care what _Anakin_ says, you don't look at all peaked." So she dares to call him _Anakin_, hmmm, my presence is sorely needed as a leavening factor in the Grandmaster-Master-Padawan dynamic. I open my mouth to reply, but she chats on.

"Sure wish you coulda been along last night," she recalls, talking around her mouthful of mushy fruit. "Barriss and I went to the Solstice Cotillion on the Main Temple Concourse and we danced all kindsa dances, like the ones you tole me about and _Anakin _did maybe twenny turns with me and three with Barriss and then he disappears like he does and then I hadda gavotte with Master Yoda - "

"Ewwwwww!"

"Oh, Barriss, it wasn't that bad, you had a turn with him yourself - "

"No, Ahsoka! Just, just ... what are ... _these?" _ Barriss holds out the fruit basket for my inspection, not daring to even touch the questioned contents.

Ahsoka waves her lightsaber hand over the basket. "Barriss, it's just a gnat, don't be a squeegee - " I haven't heard this slang before. Old, I am getting.

I peer inside the basket. "Those are dried swamp apples, what did you think they were?"

"Ears." Barriss and Ahsoka erupt as only teen Padawans can, high-pitched squeals that border on shrieks. This goes on and on until they hiccup. This evokes more giggles. Eventually, Barriss goes back to her text as she sits on the plastoid chair, tapping her feet as she concentrates.

Ahsoka gets even more comfortable. She slides the flowers, holozines and L'levalc's weighty padd off my nightstand onto the floor and perches high, propping her feet on the edge of my bed. "Yeah, sure wish you could've been with us. Sure, sure do." She has gotten ahold of my nail file and saws away at a rough edge. The noise resounds like a guiro in a jizz band in a night club with poor acoustics. She crosses her legs. "Um, say, _Anakin_ has repaired your speeder and Barriss and I were going with the gang to the Glitannai Esplanade and then maybe later if there's time to the Manarai Mountains." Now the nail filing sounds like a raucous reco-reco and I wince. "Look, is it okay if I borrow the keys to your speeder? You probably won't be needing it for awhile."

Diary, why not? "Why not? Get them from _Anakin."_

She shoots me a look of pure gratitude. "Thanks!" There follows more gossip and furious nail-filing. I know her. She will treat the vehicle well. Also, these visits never last very long. "I'm afraid we gotta be going," she announces suddenly, and Barriss springs to her feet with alacrity.

The room is very quiet after they've gone. The air is fresher as if from a spring blossom festival, the floor is littered with nail filings and small blobs of fruit, and the water drips steadily from the newly overturned vase. I reach for the buzzer to call a healer, but someone has accidentally kicked its power converter out of the socket. I lean back wanly on my pillow and close my eyes. Diary, I am spent.

IOIOIOIOIO

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Dear Diary, I feel rested only when at home.

Today was the long-awaited day when I was discharged from the Halls. I tottered feebly into my own sleep chamber, which looked exactly as it did when I left it that fatal morning. My slippersox were still beside the bed, my Temple-issued sleep shifts hanging on the floor of the closet, and everything had a musty smell, like someone fumigated while I was gone. All it needed was a yellow warning tape across the door.

My comm station blinked with incoming messages, including one with the special strobe from Mandalore, but I was too tired to get at it.

I'd have liked a glass of fruit juice, but there was no buzzer to ring for the healer. A back rub would certainly feel good right now, Diary. There was nobody to tuck me into bed, nobody to bring my supper in on a tray, nobody to wake me up tomorrow and ask me how we feel this morning.

At least, I had comforted myself, everybody would be waiting impatiently to hear about my operation. This illusion was rudely shattered. It turned out that all my friends have had one just like it, only worse. I've been trying to talk about my own operation ever since it occurred, but I couldn't find anybody to listen. On the way back here, in the lift and shuffling slowly down the last sixteen corridors, friends ducked into doorways when they saw me coming.

My bed never had these lumps before, surely? Although it hadn't the unstable feel of that vibrating air mattress in the Halls, either. I must be grateful for little things, Diary.

_ding dong dinnnnngggg donnnnnggggg_

I punch the annunciator grille, Sensing a presence that I had not felt in - "Anakin, come in!" Of course, _he_ would be the one to welcome me back, because who else, Diary? A back rub is going to feel _so _relaxing. I think I'll even allow him to read my entries. You were a gift from him, after all.

I spare a final glance at the holozine puzzle that Newsvendor left with me. 'Angst' anagrams to 'gnats,' and oh here is one buzzing near which must have ridden in on my clothing.

"I'll get rid of it for you, Master." The softened timbre of his voice is couched to my still sensitive ears, I suppose. He's entered the sleep chamber unnoticed while I was settling in.

"Don't bother, Anakin. It'll find its own way out, or not." I smile up at my good friend. "I don't mind."

IOIOIOIOIO

The End.

IOIOIOIOIO

A/N Written as a byproduct of many hours spent visiting the sick, in one hospital or another.


End file.
